August Christoph von Wackerbarth

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August Christoph Count von Wackerbarth

August Christoph Graf von Wackerbarth , also Christoph August , (born March 22, 1662 in Kogel near Ratzeburg , †  August 14, 1734 in Dresden ) was a Field Marshal General and Minister of State in the service of Augustus the Strong . As the de facto "building minister" he was at the head of the building industry in the Electorate of Saxony and thus became the "director of the Dresden Baroque ".

Life

Born on Gut Kogel in the Duchy of Saxony-Lauenburg as a scion of the old Lauenburg noble family Wackerbarth , he came in 1679 as page of the Danish Princess Wilhelmine Ernestine first to the court of the Electorate of the Palatinate in Heidelberg and then to Saxony, where in 1685 he was in the service of Elector Johann Georg III. kicked. This enabled him to undergo thorough training and a. in math and engineering as well as a grand tour of Europe. He then initially worked as an engineer in fortress construction, in 1691 he took part in the Palatinate War of Succession against France and in 1695 in the Great Turkish War . In 1697 August the Strong commissioned him to manage the entire Electoral Saxon building industry. Chief of engineering officers since 1702. From 1703 he served against France and Bavaria, in 1705 he was raised to imperial count by Emperor Joseph I and appointed commander of Hagenau , which he handed over to the French in 1706; then he became general director of civil and military buildings. In 1707 he fought on the Rhine under Prince Eugene of Savoy . In the same year he married Madame de Brandebourg , who was a close friend of Eugen and was the widow of Margrave Karl Philipp von Brandenburg-Schwedt . She was born as Caterina di Balbiano from the house of the Marchese of Colcavagno and was widowed in her first marriage as Countess of Salmour . He later brought their second-born son, Joseph Anton Gabaleon von Wackerbarth-Salmour , from Turin to Dresden and adopted him.

After he fought as a lieutenant general in the War of Spanish Succession in Flanders in 1708 and 1709 , as commander of the infantry regiment "Graf Wackerbarth" , he became secret councilor , cabinet minister and general in 1710 . In the course of the expansion of the standing army in Saxony created in 1682 under August the Strong , Count Wackerbarth, who had been chief of the engineering officers since 1702, released them from the artillery corps in 1712 and thus formed a de jure independent corps. It was the first independent engineering corps in Germany . Its bosses were directly subordinate to the sovereign, were also general managers of the military and civil buildings until 1745 and were at the same time at the head of the civil construction department. As commander of the Saxon corps , he successfully took part in the siege of Stralsund in 1715 . Several times he headed embassies to Vienna. In 1718 he was given the post of governor in Dresden .

As "Minister of Construction" of Augustus the Strong, for decades he had a significant influence on the baroque expansion of Dresden and many cities, fortresses and castles in Saxony and Poland. From Fritz Löffler he was appointed as "Director of the Dresden Baroque referred". Many master builders worked together under his aegis: Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann , architect of the major Augustan works, the Zwinger and the Moritzburg and Pillnitz palaces, acted as a representative of the lively high baroque, which was influenced by Italy and conveyed via Vienna and Prague. Zacharias Longuelune introduced the French classicist baroque in Dresden from 1713 . Johann Christoph Knöffel , a member of the next generation , a Saxon discovered and promoted by Wackerbarth, developed Longuelune's more reserved, French classicism-oriented conception and later founded the Saxon Rococo . In 1728 he advanced to become the third master builder alongside the two aforementioned. In the construction department, several architects were always commissioned separately with drafts and then usually not one was selected, but different form elements of the individual drafts were compiled with each other, with Wackerbarth always participating and often the king as well. This "collegial" process led to the synthesis of many style influences.

Reichsgraf von Wackerbarth as Field Marshal General of the Electorate of Saxony

In 1728, after the fire in his governor's house, which destroyed his private collections, including many planning drafts, he handed the general building management over to Jean de Bodt . 1730 took place by Emperor Karl VI. the appointment as General Field Marshal of the Electorate of Saxony as successor to Flemming . In the same year Wackerbarth organized the large troop show of the Saxon army , which he had thoroughly reformed , the Zeithainer Lustlager .

After August the Strong died in Warsaw in 1733 and his son, Elector Friedrich August II , had also been elected King of Poland that same year, Wackerbarth moved with the entire Saxon army to Krakow for the coronation ; However, illness soon forced him to return home and he died on August 14, 1734 at the age of 72 in Dresden. Was buried the old Wackerbarth (how to him to distinguish his now also advanced to the Cabinet Ministers adopted son called it) in the St. George's Church in Zabeltitz .

The Saxony Chamber of Engineers honors the engineering achievements of August Christoph von Wackerbarth by awarding the Wackerbarth Medal as the highest honor, first awarded in 2013, with the Leipzig automation professor and civil engineer Klaus-Peter Schulze from the HTWK Leipzig being one of the first winners .

buildings

Wackerbarth's coat of arms in the gable of the Upper Orangery in Großsedlitz

In addition to his official involvement in all major royal buildings and the buildings that were created under the leadership of the Dresden Oberbauamt, which was under his supervision, Wackerbarth also had some private buildings built: 1715–16 he had the house at Rampische Strasse 33 in Dresden based on designs by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann , which he sold to Fatima , a royal mistress, from Turkey as early as 1717 . In 1715 he also acquired the burnt-down manor in Großsedlitz and had a three-winged baroque palace built there from 1719 to 1723, as well as the Upper Orangery and the first parts of the Großsedlitz baroque garden . However, in 1723 August the Strong had him sell this property to him, initially still in secrecy, so that until 1726 Wackerbarth continued to act as the builder of the gardens.

From 1727 onwards he had the Wackerbarths Ruh ' Castle built on acquired vineyards as a retirement home in Niederlößnitz ( Radebeul ) by the architect Johann Christoph Knöffel , who he discovered and supported ; the entire system was only completed shortly before his death. Today the castle is the seat of the Saxon state winery. The Palais Wackerbarth on Beaumontplatz in Dresden Neustadt (burnt out in 1945 and demolished in 1963), which was also built by Knöffel from 1723 to 1728, was used by the army chief as a knight academy (a kind of cadet institute) for the training of the next generation of officers. The Dresden governor's residence was the governor's house , which burned down in 1728 - of all things, during an overnight visit by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I. Since all of Wackerbarth's possessions, including his art collection, library and his extensive collection of architectural drawings, were lost, August the Strong gave him the ruined plot of land, where he had Knoeffel and the staff of the construction department erect a new building in 1728/29 Owner until today is called Kurländer Palais . The king also gave him the renaissance hunting lodge Zabeltitz including the manor, which Wackerbarth had a baroque garden and a baroque palace expanded by Knöffel. In the same year, however, he gave up the general building management and concentrated on his military tasks.

literature

Web links

Commons : August Christoph von Wackerbarth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Saxony Chamber of Engineers: Engineering achievements in Saxony . Dresden 1998, ISBN 3-00-002735-1 , p. 10.
  2. ^ Curt Jany : History of the Prussian Army. From the 15th century to 1914 . Vol. 1: From the beginning to 1740 . 2nd, supplemented edition, edited by Eberhard Jany. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1967, ISBN 3-7648-1471-3 , p. 636.
  3. ^ Hagen Bächler, Monika Schlechte: Guide to the Baroque in Dresden . Harenberg, Dortmund 1991, pp. 20f.
personal data
SURNAME Wackerbarth, August Christoph von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wackerbarth, August Christoph Graf von (full name); Wackerbarth, Christoph August von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saxon General Field Marshal
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1662
PLACE OF BIRTH Kogel
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1734
Place of death Dresden